


when the crown hangs heavy on either side

by merthurlin



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 07:25:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13899180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merthurlin/pseuds/merthurlin
Summary: Samothes, in the sword, after.





	when the crown hangs heavy on either side

The first month after the forge, after his last High Sun Day, after the Six and the sword and Maelgwyn, was spent in a state of manic productivity, testing the bounds of his new prison and scheming a way to get out. Samothes didn’t know what would happen when he was stabbed, killed, with the Sword in the Dark, but he didn’t expect this - a prison inside a sword, his only companion his husband’s disciples, those he was meant to face in battle, not aid in experimentation.

But difficult circumstances make for peculiar alliances, and Samothes could not be picky, not when he had a world to get back to, a husband to confront, a son to comfort.

He thought a lot about Maelgwyn, those first few weeks. How he loved him. How he failed him. How he was proud of him, proud of all of his choices, proud of his failures and successes. Being stabbed by one’s own son - it was a tale fit for the ages, a story of hubris and regret, of putting too many expectations and hopes and dreams on one pair of shoulders. It was his choices that led his son to that room, holding that blade - his mistakes, Samot’s. An entire family history written in bad parenting, and absolutely none of it Maelgwyn’s fault. As he talked with his allies, running circles around and around different magical theories, he couldn’t help but lose his thoughts in images of a young blond boy, running different circles, not yet touched by a world of hurt and disappointments.

After that first month, things calmed down a bit. The wizards came to the conclusion that there is no way to get outside, not from this end, so they might as well settle in to the long haul. Samothes kept going for awhile longer, hoping to at least send a message, a signal, something, but to no avail. Ingenuity alive or not, this prison seemed imprentable. And so the god who invented the sun set his sights on other projects. He fondly remembered Marielda, with its never ending reconstruction and reinvention, a city of change of his own making. But there was no place in the universe for a second Marielda, and he wouldn’t want to make one anyway.

At first it was small - humble lodgings for him and his companions, some farming equipment, some building tools. Enough to make an honest living, enough for a god to feel like a mortal. The wizards grumbled, unused to having to work with their hands and not their brains, but they too adapted.

Trying to find a way out - that only took a month to dissipate. But to stop thinking about _out_? That took a lot longer.

In his best moments, he thought about Marielda, about the city he constructed to stand the test of time and peace, of war and prosperity. At the end of the day, he was a smith, and Marielda was his masterpiece. The sun was all well and good, but people did not live on it, people did not love on it, people did not die on it. The sun was a thing that didn’t need people to exist, but Marielda was a place that could not exist _without_ people. 

In his worst moments, he thought about Samot. How long has it been, since he saw his husband? Time was…. Insignificant, for gods, but he suddenly found himself obsessing, trying to calculate every moment since they have parted ways. It seems almost unfair that their last meeting face to face was so _soft_. A quiet goodbye, a last hug. All the arguments and the anger and the pain came before, and they will come after, but that one last time was peaceful, in a way that has never really suited either of them.

Time was insignificant for gods, but pleasure was not, as Samot could well attest to (and Samothes too, in those nights his husband convinced him to come to bed, take a rest, _stop working for just one damn night, Samothes, or I will call Samol-_ ). The first time Samothes tried to pleasure himself in his new land, he was interrupted before he even started, as it was the first time new people has arrived to their little blade prison. The wizards have been positively ecstatic, believing it to be a sign of some kind of deterioration of the cage around them, but it quickly became clear that those were simply more people killed with this blade made of the Heat and the Dark, more mortal victims of divine mistakes. The next few weeks felt much like their first month, all work, no time, trying to enlarge their little compound to accomodate more people.

(And more, and _more_ , and Samothes couldn’t help but wonder who it was that was wielding the blade now. Was it still Maelgwyn, keeping the blade that killed his father, using it in his other father’s name? Was it Samot, paying tribute to the husband he sent his son to kill? Or was it some other person, a nameless entity that has no possibility of knowing the history of the weapon they carry? Which option carried with it the least pain, the most redemption?)

But eventually there came a quiet night. No emergencies, no newcomers, just Samothes and the room he built and the memory of Samot’s hands, his touch, his breath on Samothes’ bare collarbones. Samothes could almost taste the last night they spent in the same bed, before Samol’s sickness and Samot’s research and Samothes’ work. When they were still gods, yes, but also husbands and fathers and men, loving each other. He has knelt on his knees, that night, paying worship to his husband’s cunt, parting his folds with his tongue, crooking his finger inside his heat. Samot’s knees shook, he remembered, and Samothes had to use his other hand to hold him up, grip his hips while Samot’s hands grasped at his hair, shoving him even deeper inside him, until Samot was all Samothes could see, hear, smell.

And later, when Samot found his release, he has paid him back in kind, Samothes on his back with three of his husband’s finger in him and his mouth covering his mound. A clever hand working him, and even cleverer hands playing with his nipples, an assault from all fronts. Closing his eyes now he could almost see Samot’s eyes shining in the dark, a wicked curve to his mouth. Could almost taste his release on his tongue, could almost smell the sex and sweat in the air.

Samothes was ingenuity alive, _the artificier divine_ , so how was it possible that it was _nothing_ that has made Samot, that it was _nothing_ that could claim credit for this one invention, this one man who has turned his world around, who has given him friendship and love and a son? Samothes could spend a thousand, ten thousand, _hundred thousand years_ and not manage to recreate Samot’s likeness.

It was with relief mixed with shame that he could feel himself getting frustrated rather than excited, the drag of his fingers inside of him gritting rather than comforting, not in the room he shared with his husband but in this new world he shared with past enemies and new responsibilities. He throws one arm over his face, the other falling limply to his mattress. He can feel the tears coming, held in bay by nothing but his sheer will, but even that was eroding under the possibilities of years and decades and centuries without Samot and Maelgwyn, the encroaching loneliness that could turn even the bravest scared. He is shuddering, taking in big gulps of air, knowing he can’t afford this weakness, not when people depended on him, not when this was his fault, his mistake, a long road of choices that has led him here, unable to even find release with the shade of his husband haunting him.

Time was insignificant, but responsibility was not, not when you were once a king of a continent. Samothes has learned to shoulder blame a long time ago, and he would not slip up, not even now, when his continent has been reduced to a cage.

Pleasure was always more of Samot’s domain anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> working title was "sad god dad can't masturbate", i'm SO sorry but also i'm SO sad. come find me on @merthurlin on twitter!


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